Editor's letter

The need to search through oceans of electronic information dates back to the earliest days of the IT industry. Since then, it has fuelled the adoption of a myriad of different technologies, from the earliest, most rudimentary mechanisms for extracting fixed-length records from ‘flat files’ or hierarchical databases, via relational database querying using the Structured Query Language (SQL), to today’s sophisticated enterprise-search tools, capable of interrogating numerous corporate-information systems.

That need, however, has never been greater. In pursuit of good governance and regulatory compliance, companies are generating and storing ever-greater volumes of information. Some of it is raw data, held in relational databases. But a greater and increasing proportion of it is held in unstructured formats – in text documents and e-mails, for example, and on corporate websites and intranets. Either way, it must be retrieved. But, what are the chief obstacles to search and retrieval strategies? Are search technologies an important element of your general business processes? Bearing these questions in mind, we’ve included a 40-page supplement, The Age of Search with this month’s magazine. It features market analysis, comment from industry analysts and ‘Q and A’ sessions with leading vendors in the space. You’ll also find the results of our comprehensive survey on enterprise-search strategy,which canvassed the opinions of representatives from more than 580 companies.

Elsewhere in these pages, Paul Chin returns with the first in a two-part series on intranet security (page 28) and David Deveau guides us through a consolidation of information-management functions, on page 36. And, for those of you waiting to continue with the eight-step portal implementation, the second instalment in Mike Ferguson’s series can be found on page 36.

Legacy applications – the topic of this month’s cover story – are often an unfortunate and costly reminder of the past. But, as Jessica Twentyman discovered, organisations are actively taking steps to renew these applications and bolster their ongoing strategies. Find out why, and how, on page 10.

Case studies from State Records of South Australia and PricewaterhouseCoopers, plus the latest industry news and opinion, round off this packed issue.

I hope that you enjoy this month’s magazine. As always, if you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me at kclifton@ark-group.com.

Kate Clifton
Assistant editor

Features

Workshop: Information management and culture Free
In these days of Sarbanes-Oxley, Enron, massive IT budgets, off-shore outsourcing and the demographic aging of our corporate experience, it is more important than ever that organisations have a broad, robust strategy to address their information-management objectives.

Workshop: Portal implementation Free
Defining a portal architecture or framework is a good way to see the services that are needed in a portal and how they fit together. This also helps identify what to look for in portal products when you evaluate the solutions that are available in the marketplace.

Workshop: Intranet security Free
“It will never happen to us.” These are the famous last words that often precede the hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing stress associated with the loss of critical data, due to either carelessness or malicious attack. It’s a false affirmation that marks victims like a war wound – a daily reminder of the reality of threats to information and infrastructure.

Case study: PricewaterhouseCoopers Free
PricewaterhouseCoopers (pwC) provides industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services for public and private clients. Its 14,850 partners and staff in the UK have had access to an internal (business-to-employee) portal since December 2002. Although a significant step towards capturing and sharing knowledge and information across the business, it was not being used to its full potential and was viewed primarily as a place to undertake key transactions, such as submitting timesheets and expenses claims.

Case study: State Records of South Australia Free
From an SRSA perspective, the future of EDRM systems (EDRMS) in government rests with one key element: governance. As the central-agency responsible for leading the EDRM program in our state, we have taken a holistic approach to the issue and kept our outputs simple and fit for purpose. We have developed a comprehensive support programme for records and information-management practitioners, to ensure their agency has every chance of achieving numerous, ambitious goals that have been set with a 2010 deadline.

Cover story: Legacy application renewal Free
For many companies, legacy applications – those written in languages such as Cobol and PL/1 and residing on data-centre mainframes – are an unfortunate but necessary reminder of their past. These applications represent years of maintenance and financial investment, which few firms are inclined to abandon, and enable them to perform mission-critical transactions that are vital to business performance.

Regulars

The last word: Bill Raschen Free
It’s been suggested that the opening years of the 21st century have provided the worst start to any century within the last millennium. The sheer number of large-scale disasters in swift succession over the past five years, ranging from the man-made horrors of 9/11 through to natural disasters such as the south east Asian tsunami and the recent US hurricanes has been remarkable.

Trend tracker: E-learning Free
As head of e-learning at communications-equipment company Cable & Wireless, William Ward is responsible for encouraging the company’s 23,000 employees around the world to make full use of a wide range of training and development courses that they can access from their PCs, laptops and personal digital assistants.